Science and Technology Studies: A Discussion with Dr. Giuseppina Pellegrino

April 1, 2013 —

We are delighted that Dr. Pellegrino, current President of the the Italian Society for the Study of Science and Technology, will be on campus Thursday, April 4th, to give two talks. These events are sponsored by Drexel's STS program and Mobilities Research and Policy Center. We look forward to seeing you at one or both of these events.

12:00-1:00 PM: A Discussion about STS in Italia

Dr. Pellegrino will talk about what's happening with STS in Italy, the formation of STS Italia and her position as President of the Italian Society for the Study of Science and Technology, and the journal Tecnoscienza - Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies. She will discuss these, linked research and publishing activities. See http://www.stsitalia.org/ and http://www.tecnoscienza.net/

6:30-7:30 PM: Research Talk, Crossroads in STS-based Mobilities:
The Costa Concordia Case as Exemplary Story

Abstract
The lecture will describe and identify potential crossroads between STS and Mobilities as two contiguous fields. As they share an interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary status, their hybridization can provide fertile materials of reflection from both a theoretical and an empirical viewpoint. In order to depict similarities and differences between STS and Mobility Studies, the case of the cruise ship ‘Costa Concordia’ partial sinking in January 2012 off the Giglio island in Italy will be proposed as ‘exemplary story’ to summarize the key-concepts and criticalities of STS-based Mobilities. Cruise tourism is an ideal concentration of the relationships between mobilities and immobilities on the one hand; on the other, the cruise ship is a summary of ecological infrastructures, standards and classifications, as well as of heterogeneous chains of humans and non humans at work in a micro-environment which is highly and densely technological. Therefore, the case (reconstructed through media based and second hand accounts) provides an opportunity to use Boundary Objects-Infrastructure and ANT approaches and combine them with mobility issues linked to physical transport and information sharing.

Giuseppina Pellegrino, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Department of Sociology and Political Sciences, University of Calabria (Italy). She is currently Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Italian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Department of French and Italian in the Spring semester (Jan-Apr 2013), teaching a course on “Italian Media, Gender and Politics”. Dr. Pellegrino's research and teaching interests concern a wide range of topics: Science and Technology Studies with particular reference to new media and technology design; gender and media stereotypes in public and political communication; Cultural and Media Studies. She has published extensively on these topics in international journals, special issues and collective books. She has been a visiting fellow at the Universities of Edinburgh, Lancaster (UK), Graz-Klagenfurt, Darmstadt, and Erasmus visiting teacher at Erfurt.Her latest edited book is “The Politics of Proximity. Mobility and Immobility in Practice” (foreword by John Urry, Ashgate, 2011). Dr. Pellegrino is the newly appointed President of STS Italia, the Italian Society for the Study of Science and Technology (www.stsitalia.org) and over the last three years she served as co-editor in chief for ‘Tecnoscienza. Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies’ (www.tecnoscienza.net).